


Bittersweet

by Yanagi_Uxinta



Category: RWBY
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, Pre-RWBY, RWBY Drabbles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:55:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25281214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yanagi_Uxinta/pseuds/Yanagi_Uxinta
Summary: A series of Blake-centric drabbles, from before and during the show.Chapter One: A small moment from before things went wrong. When they were just two people who believed they deserved better. In this particular case, better clothes.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Blake Belladonna/Sun Wukong
Kudos: 2





	1. Just a Little Change

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a small writing practise to get me back into writing after a long break, somewhere between the end of volume five and the Adam short/the start of volume six. Set a couple of years before the Black trailer, when Blake still saw Adam as a hero and not a monster.

It was getting silly now. Yes, they were both scrimping and saving everything they could get for weapon parts and money for the blacksmiths, but they’d both had growth spurts in the past few months and it was _really_ starting to show.

‘Adam.’

‘Hm?’ He was adding to the blueprint for his weapon – he’d finally settled on the design, and was adding the last few details.

‘We’re going shopping.’

He looked up, brow furrowed and nose wrinkled, put-out. ‘Now? What for?’

‘New clothes,’ she said, tugging at her plain gray top. She’d had it for years, but she’d noticed a small hole in the seam this morning; not to mention that the chest had been getting slowly more uncomfortable as the fabric stretched tighter over the last year.

Adam looked her up and down, then pushed his chair back to survey his own dark top and combat trousers, frowning in disagreement. ‘What’s wrong with these?’

Blake sighed. Forgetting to eat for hours at a time when he was absorbed in something was one thing, but this? ‘Adam, if you get any taller you’ll be wearing a crop top and cut-offs. And I’m wearing clothes five years too young for me that don’t actually fit anymore.’ In a way, being so slender had been an advantage – less money had to go on clothes, meaning it could go to food and weapons instead. Unfortunately, biology had decided to catch up with her.

His lips twitched as he caught her meaning, though his eyes remained very firmly fixed on her face. His smile only grew when she narrowed her eyes at him, her ears tilting back in mock displeasure. He knew the difference between fake and real, though she hoped the warmth she could feel rising up her back and towards her cheeks wasn’t visible.

They’d been... not dancing around each other, they were too comfortable for that, but something had changed between them in the past few months. They were always together, but she was sure they would sit just a little closer than they used to – almost touching. When they stood and talked, she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. He’d started stooping, just a fraction, when he spoke. He’d step just a little nearer when he did; it could have been entirely innocent – he’d shot past six foot in the past six months, so he would have to bend down towards her level... only he would look for a second too long, would stand close enough for her to hear him breathing, listen to his heart on the edges of her hearing.

It wasn’t all her imagination. It couldn’t be. _Especially_ when he rolled up from his chair in a long stretch, baring several inches of pale skin beneath his shirt, a few shades paler than his exposed arms and face. Especially when he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, like he was waiting for a reaction. The tension slumped out of him as fast as he had drawn it up, but then he was standing _that_ close again, a smirk hiding at the corners of his mouth.

‘Fine then. I suppose we can save up for another couple of weeks – it’ll give us more time to finalise designs and find a blacksmith willing to serve us,’ he said, that edge of anger creeping in at the end. It was becoming too familiar lately, so she did what seemed to work – she smiled, nodded, and diverted.

‘You’ll still help me with training, right? I’m really starting to get to grips with my semblance.’ Living outside the cities, her parents had unlocked her aura when she was just a baby, but she’d only started manifesting her semblance and actively trying to use it in the past few years. Adam was helping her learn how to use it in combat, blending it with the swordplay he favoured and giving pointers when she took what he’d given her and made it her own.

He gave her a side-eyed look, one that said he knew full well what she was doing, but he let it slide with a rueful smile. ‘Of course. So, what is my little shopaholic going to buy?’ he asked, swiping up a chunk of their savings.

She bit her tongue on the completely illogical rush that flowed through her when he said ‘my’, and looked him up and down, contemplative. ‘Heels. You’re too tall; my neck’s getting sore looking up at you.’

He grinned, slinging a casual arm around her shoulders as they headed out of camp. ‘Are you sure you can fight in those?’

It was her turn to smirk, prodding him pointedly in the ribs. ‘I _am_ a Cat faunus. I don’t think I’ll have any balance problems.’

He chuckled, ruffling the hair between her cat ears. ‘Guess we’ll see in the training ring.’


	2. The Collector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake has several bows. Ones for everyday, ones for special occasions. Some were frivolities. Some were gifts. There's only one she won't wear, especially when she's going to the dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my very first piece of RWBY fanfic, so please forgive any drop in quality from my other works! Originally posted back in July 2016, long before we found out what was under Adam's mask (called the eye colour! Well, half of it...) A few people wondered why Blake wore a blue ribbon with a purple dress for the dance, so I thought I'd explore why.

She had a collection.

Yang had asked her about it, that first day when they were all unpacking. Blake had taken the roll of ribbons out of her small, second-hand suitcase and moved them to her drawer in the dresser. Blake had just shrugged and said she liked wearing them; while pointing out that her collection took up far less space than Weiss' shoe one. That had sufficiently deflected attention away from them, and they hadn't been interesting enough in the first place to inquire further about.

In truth, they meant a lot more to her than a means to cover her ears. Several of those ribbons were the only things she'd taken with her when she left the White Fang, along with Gambol Shroud. Some were years old, the colours faded and ends frayed.

Some had been gifts.

The other three had already gone down to the dance, all of them hoping that Blake would turn up as she'd promised. She was going to – she knew Sun would be waiting, probably complaining about the tie she'd talked him into and that Weiss would have banned him from the party if he arrived without.

Her ears were uncovered and she had her roll of ribbons out, unravelled across her bed. The purple one lay in her hands, the plum colour a perfect match for the dress she'd rushed out to buy that afternoon when she realised she didn't have anything suitable for a party. It was soft velvet, too fine and pretty to wear everyday – especially in a White Fang encampment.

_'Here. If you insist on wearing them, you should have a nice one.'_

She'd loved it; had worn it for the rest of the day with a small, delighted smile whenever she had seen him, and refused to use it on missions in case it was damaged. She had saved it for special occasions after that; victories where they'd pulled off a job flawlessly and no one was hurt.

She'd had fewer and fewer reasons to wear it as time passed. It would have been so easy to leave behind that day they attacked the train – just leave it folded neatly on his pillow, a more tangible goodbye than a soft voice all but lost among the roar of the train and the wind.

She couldn't leave it. So she'd wrapped it up with the others, folded as flat as they would go and tucked into her pocket. She'd hung onto it for over a year now – never worn it, but on hard nights when she just couldn't sleep she would quietly slip it out of the drawer and take it back to bed with her. She'd run it through her fingers and stare out at the night sky that was so familiar from their months of camping in the forest until sleep finally came.

It was comfort. It was home. It was the safety he brought, the surety in those startling blue eyes that seemed at odds with the hard lines of his face. It was him, before he started wearing that mask all the time rather than just on a job. It was her, before she'd started wearing a bow wherever she went rather than just in public.

It was fear. It was pain. It was being unable to see his eyes and realising that, this time, he wasn't going to give her an excuse for the pain he'd inflicted on the humans who got in their way. It was her own silence, her cowardice for standing by and not trying to talk him down when maybe – _maybe_ – she would have been the one he'd listen to.

It wasn't warm smiles and cheeky humour. It wasn't casual ease and familiarity, without pushing her too far. It wasn't bright hair and dark eyes and bags of confidence he could actually justify having. It wasn't a second chance.

Blake set the purple bow aside and reached for another one. It didn't match as well, but the iridescent blue satin was nice enough for a party and wasn't a heavy reminder of everything she was trying to leave behind. It was an indulgent present to herself, soon after forming Team RWBY. It was freedom and a lack of guilt.

She went to the party and danced with her friends and the boy who had tolerated a tie for her, and didn't think about the velvet plum ribbon all night.


	3. When She Sleeps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake, and how she sleeps - and wakes - before, during, and after Beacon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never posted before, but written years ago. I kept tinkering with it, wondering if this would fit into a longer fic, but I think it works better on its own as a drabble.

Those first few mornings she would, in that hazy space between sleep and waking, stretch out grasping fingers for his back, his arm, his shoulder. She would reach out and the shock of empty space would wake her fully.

He would never be there again. Though it had been her choice, her heart ached at that. Perhaps one day, when she was a Huntress – when things were better for the Faunus, when he had come to his senses.

For now, she needed to make amends, and hope he came to the same realisation she had. She arrived in Vale and sent her application to Beacon academy that same day.

*

The first few nights, she couldn’t sleep. Yang snored, Ruby tossed and turned, and Weiss huffed pointedly if she tried to read herself into exhaustion. She woke bleary-eyed and quiet, used to the single bed by now but still longing for the comfort of a warm arm around her.

She grew used to it though. Yang’s snoring became a familiar background noise, as did Ruby’s somnambulistic acrobatics, and Weiss stopped glaring every five seconds. Slowly the sense of something missing of a morning faded, and the simple comfort of her quilt and the presence of her teammates was all the company she needed.

*

Those first few nights she would, in sleep-addled panic, throw her hands out to fend him away when he wasn’t there. She would reach out and her hand going clean through his shoulder would snap her awake with remembered smoke searing her nose, and warm blood trickling down her side from where she’d yanked her stitches open in her nightmare. 

He was never there, but the fear remained. She would huddle by the window, waiting for the sky to fade from black to gray to the oranges and pinks of sunrise. She would redress her wound, splash cold water on her face to stave off the exhaustion, and fight to stay awake long into the night.

When sleep finally snuck up on her, he was always there.


End file.
